WHZ View: Rice shows class with phenomenal performance for West Ham v Man Utd
Declan Rice was the best West Ham player on the pitch as the Hammers lost 3-1 to Manchester United on Saturday evening.
Rice got an assist as Tomas Soucek put the Irons ahead in the first half and gave the returning Irons’ fans the perfect welcome home present.
Second-half goals from Paul Pogba, Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford turned the game on its head and West Ham were left with nothing after 90 minutes.
Rice wasn’t to blame for the Red Devils’ second-half turnaround as he turned in a top-class performance against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side.
As usual, Rice was absolutely everywhere and, as you can see from his Wyscout heatmap, he covered nearly every blade of grass in the midfield at the London Stadium.
His individual stats from Saturday’s game are simply incredible as he performed above his own high standard that he has been setting this season.
Rice’s passing was a joy to behold as, according to Wyscout, the 21-year-old registered a 96% passing accuracy against Man United which is an improvement on the already impressive 91.9% pass accuracy he has averaged this term.
In fact, the midfielder only misplaced two passes during the game which really shows how good Rice’s passing ability is.
He also completed 100% of his long passes during a display of exceptional ability from the England international.
Defensively, Rice was also impressive as he won 82% of his defensive duels against a quality Red Devils attack.
Rice won 100% of his slide tackles and made 13 recoveries as he did his best to keep his side in the game.
Overall, 83% of Rice’s actions against Man United were successful which indicates that he rarely put a foot wrong.
It was a brilliant display from Rice as he excelled going forward and tracking back. Performances like this will surely mean he will be the subject of significant transfer speculation during the upcoming January window.
In other West Ham news, Pablo Fornals had an evening to forget against the Red Devils.